Contact (1997)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


Jodie Foster plays Dr. Elli Arroway, a radio astronomer. She was raised by her father, who gave her a strong interest in astronomy. She spends a great deal of her adult life looking for extraterrestrial life, mostly with SETI. Things are rough. Most government bureaucrats aren’t willing to finance the search for little green men, so Dr. Arroway has to spend a lot of time looking for funding. Fortunately, she’s able to secure enough to rent radio telescopes, which scan the heavens for some sort of coherent signal.

Finally, just as everyone’s about to give up hope, a signal comes in. It’s these loud, booming noises. Dr. Arroway and her team realize that the noises are grouped in prime numbers. Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible by only themselves and one, such as 2 and 5. (1 isn’t considered a prime number by many for reasons I won’t go into here.) Any intelligent civilization should know what a prime number is because primes are independent of what base we use for our numbering system. The signal is very interesting. It’s so interesting that the government wants a part of it. Dr. Arroway and her team are allowed to research it, but at the governments direction.

Some interesting things are learned about the clip. First, there’s a clip of Hitler speaking at the 1936 Olympics. The 1936 Olympics was the first TV signal strong enough to go into space. The aliens, whoever they are, apparently recorded the signal and sent it back to us. Is this an endorsement for the Nazis or is it simply a way of saying, “Hey! Look what we found!” After a little more digging, dozens of diagrams are uncovered. No one can figure out what they are. Finally, Dr. Arroway gets the nudge she needs to figure out how they work.

They’re actually blueprints. America is able to construct this big sphere that sits atop a device that can (presumably) send it through space. The scientific community is at a loss to explain how it works. No one is really sure that it will, but we decide to try anyway. After a lot of hard work and sacrifice, we finally manage to get Dr. Arroway into the sphere and through the device.

Here’s where I’m going to end the plot review. There’s still a significant portion of the movie left, and there’s really no way I can handle it without giving away too much. The movie does a good job of setting up the story and leaving us wondering what will come of the events. In a way, I’d like to see a sequel, but it’s just as well that there isn’t one. I think to try and answer the questions I have might spoil the fun.

There’s a constant theme of science vs. religion throughout the movie. Elle Arroway needs proof. She can’t fully accept religion because it offers no real proof. Then there’s Palmer Joss, who’s religious and tries to make the case for religion without trying to force it upon anyone. It almost seems that religion and science are polar opposites. The X-Files did a better job using Scully, who was both religious and a scientist, to stage the question and to show that you don’t have to be one or the other.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Carl Sagan. In writing the book, Sagan had to deal not only with how a race would contact us but with the logistics of how a meeting would take place. The nearest star to us is 4 light years away. That means that it takes light 4 years to cover the distance to that star, and there’s no way that we can pass the speed of light with our current understanding of science.

The movie doesn’t really explain too much the science. As I said, we’re presented with an option that might turn out to be a fraud. It’s really a story that’s accessible to anyone, regardless of their understanding of physics or astronomy. I think I could recommend this movie to just about anyone.


IMDb page
 

The Dead Zone (1983)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Christopher Walken plays John Smith, a man who has everything. He has a beautiful girlfriend. He also has a job as an English teacher. He’s doing all right until one night, after dropping his girlfriend off at her house, he gets in an accident. He wakes up in a hospital. When he remembers what happened and realizes that he’s without bandages, he asks what’s going on.

It turns out that he’s been in a coma for five years. His girlfriend has moved on. His job is no longer there. He finds that everything is either gone or slipping away. While in the hospital, he touches a nurse. He sees a burning house and calls out the name of the nurse’s daughter. Smith tells the nurse to run home and save the girl.

It turns out to be a long and painful road to recovery. He’s initially bound to a wheelchair, but with a lot of hard work, he’s able to walk with the help of a cane. He can’t return to his old job, but he is able to work as a tutor. Through it all is his doctor, Sam Weizak, played by Herbert Lom. Smith is able to demonstrate his abilities by figuring out where his long-lost mother is. (Dr. Weizak was separated from her during World War II.)

Smith is able to help others, like a boy who can’t seem to function. He also aids the local police department in finding a serial killer. Dr. Weizak advises against it because Smith ends up with terrible pains and reports that he feels like he’s dying each time. He can’t, though. He wants to help.

I should warn you that I’m about to divulge how the movie ends. Now is the time to stop reading if you’re not into that kind of stuff. Smith realizes that he has one last mission to accomplish. Martin Sheen plays Greg Stillson, a candidate for Senator. This guy’s a certifiable nut job and everyone knows it, but he keeps getting voted into office because he has that certain charisma that says, “I’ll do what I promise no matter what.”

Smith has a vision in which Stillson goes on to become president. This president isn’t anything like what Sheen plays on The West Wing. This president is suicidal. Instead of waiting for a diplomatic solution, he ends up launching missiles at the enemy, thus ensuring the end of humanity. Smith must kill Stillson, even though he’ll never get away alive.

The movie is very depressing. We see Smith eventually stripped of everything. This is a man that could be any one of us. (After all, he’s named John Smith.) Any one of us could be in an accident. Any one of us could see our girlfriend marry another man and have a child. Granted, not everyone has the ability to touch people and know details about them. As we watch Smith slide into a life he wants no part of, we have to empathize with him. I don’t think any of us would want that life, even if we had the ability to help people.

Walken does an excellent job as Smith. He portrays the frustration perfectly. Sheen also does very well as the sociopath candidate. It seems natural that the movie would have to end with one of them dying.  This is definitely not a movie for children. I don’t think that anyone under the age of 16 or so would be able to deal with many of the issues dealt with in this movie. I don’t think many adults would, either. 

The Dead Zone - Official Trailer